Saturday, June 22, 2013

The Guildhall Arts Centre Bristol was launched last night with the opening of their first exhibition 'Inspired'. A mixed collection of paintings, sculpture and prints. I have three wood and lino cuts in the exhibition including 'Dryad' below.

'Dryad' Hand coloured Woodcut

The former Guildhall and Assize court is part of an ambitious regeneration scheme for the Old City area of Bristol. This remarkable building has been bought by the Trevor Osborne Group who will develop it into a Luxury Hotel, in the meantime giving Art Ventures Ltd the opportunity to run it as an Arts Centre until the end of the year.

Art Ventures plan a series of exhibitions there including the Bristol Art Prize ( moved from Bath this year!) in which all artists entering the Competition will be required to visit Bristol and prepare a painting inspired by a specified viewpoint that they are allocated by ballot and are encourage where possible to paint 'En plein air'.

There will also be temporary studio spaces available for local artists working on a Bristol theme, who do not normally have the opportunity to produce large scale artwork. Commission from sales of work in the exhibitions will go to the Mayor of Bristol's Fund and the Princes Trust, who will also be running a variety of Arts based workshops for local disadvantaged young people.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

It's great fun painting the coat of many colours for my elephant 'The Butterfly Effect' which I've nicknamed 'Kali' .......short for Kaleidoscope, which is the collective noun for a group of butterflies. Could there be a more beautiful or appropriate collective noun for any creature?